Acts 11
RileyActs 11:1-30
THE OF THE CHURCHAct_11:1-30. that amazed them, such is the diffidence with which men attend upon the Divine promises. Had not the ascended Christ said, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8)? God’s plan never purposed an end with the Jew, nor limitations with Judea or even its relative, Samaria. “The Gentile also” and “the ends of the earth” were in His vision from the first. The Divine outlook is always so much larger than that of mortal man that he finds it difficult to exercise the same.“And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them” (Acts 11:2), as if by that step Peter had doomed his personal standing and disgraced the new Church. Alas, how easy it is for littleness and prejudice to draw lines and determine borders and even imagine that God Himself should not go beyond them!“But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and expounded it by order unto them, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me:“Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered, and saw four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.“And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat.“But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth.“But the voice answered me again from Heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.“And this was done three times: and all were drawn up again into Heaven.“And, behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house where I was, sent from Caesarea unto me.“And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man’s house:“And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter;“Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.“And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.“Then remembered I the Word of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed baptised with water; but ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost.“Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?“When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life” (Acts 11:4-18).The Divine program holds always and ever a place for expansion.
BY We employ the term “missions” here in the sense of world-wide evangelization. Long before Peter had this experience, Christ had uttered for the Church His marching orders, and in the same language formulated a recipe for her success:“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the Name of the Bather, and of the Son. and of the Holy Ghost:“Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:19-20).The command is clear—“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations”.
Mark puts it, “Go ye into all the world”. Dr. A. C. Dixon said, “Expansion is the watchword of Christianity * *. The Church needs no Monroe doctrine.” While she cannot take a sword of steel and go forth conquering and to conquer, it is her mission to take the Sword of the Spirit—the Word of God—and by its messages of peace and love, make converts in every kingdom and from every tribe.
In these days when our statesmen are telling us that a new era is on for America, the Era of Expansion, and that this mighty territory is no longer content to exist as the United States, but must hold her possessions in the Orient and increase her islands in the Occident, what is to be the attitude of the Church of God? For two thousand years she has had full before her eyes her great Captain’s last command, “Go ye, therefore, into all the world”.The means of her success is also appointed. “And preach the Gospel to every creature”.
When Peter stood before this audience made up alike of Jew and Gentile, he declared how by a visit to Cornelius he had learned that God was no respecter of persons; and lo, as he preached to the people,“the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.“Then remembered I the Word of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God” (Acts 11:15-17)?The Gospel proved itself the power of God for the salvation of the Gentiles, as also it had done for the salvation of the Jews.“When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18).That Gospel is no less potent now. The late Dr. Josiah Strong called our attention to a very important fact, namely this, that while the proportion of evangelical church-members to the whole population is three times as large now as it was a hundred years ago, the proportion of the population attending upon the services has not increased, but decreased instead. He affirms the fact that now the great majority of those who attend church services are communicants, and adds significantly, “The Gospel has brought nearly all to acknowledge its claims, who have come statedly within the sphere of the pulpit’s influence.” That emphasizes the fact that the Gospel is the changeless factor in the expansion of the church. When Paul lived, it was “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth”. It is no less today.
What folly, then, for men to expect church expansion by putting some man-made philosophy in its place! When great denominations come to a standstill, and church dignitaries inquire into the cause, they will find it to be always the same, namely, that something has occurred to keep the people and the Gospel apart, since the Gospel, when properly preached, has lost nothing of its power to convict of sin, of righteousness, and of the judgment to come, nothing of its power to save.
If, therefore, one believes in expansion for the church, let him join in the endeavor to preach the Gospel “to every creature”.The promise is adequate to expansion. “Lo, I am with you alway”. What more do we need? Having a clear command; having a God-appointed agency, and having so precious a promise, who does not see in these things the opportunity of ecclesiastical enlargement?Charles Spurgeon once related how old Gascon, when asked if he could enter a certain fortress, and at the same time was given to understand that it was impregnable, said, “Can the sun enter it?” “Yes.” “Well, then, where the sun can go, we can enter.” Spurgeon comments, “Whatever is possible, or whatever is impossible, Christians can do at God’s command, for God is with us. Do you not see that the words, ‘God with us’ put impossibility out of all existence?”It was Paul who dared to say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me”. Oh, that the present church would nail that speech before its mast! It was the Apostles’ sense of His presence and of His power that ‘furnished the secret of their success. And, today, facing difficulties, as the church does, against frowning obstacles, as the church is, this very promise, “Lo, I am with you alway”, ought to fill her with conscious power and make her afraid to undertake nothing if only He directs.“‘Oh, God, our help in ages past!’ So prayed our fathers in the days of yore, Our cry the same across the troubled years, O Lord of hosts, where Thou art seen before, The faint grow stronger, and vanish all their fears, Speak Thou the word that holds the nations still, Come by Thy ways we know not in Thy might, Let brave hearts bind them to Thy righteous will And Thy clear purpose shine above the fight.” BY Evangelism abroad insures growth at home. It was the experience of the early Church to find that in proportion as it spread out its endeavors, it strengthened the home plant. It is doubtful if there was any period in the history of the New Testament Church when its growth was more rapid than at the time when its members, scattered abroad, went everywhere “preaching the Word”.“Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the Word to none but unto the Jews only.“And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus.“And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord” (Acts 11:19-21).More and more are we impressed with the fact that you cannot preach in one place in all the world without profiting the Church of God in other places. Sometimes when I have gone from home to aid in meetings in towns many miles removed, I have felt ill at ease, lest I might be neglecting my own work; but I am more and more convinced that no effort put forth abroad is without profit to the home work.Years since when Mr. Moody went evangelizing into England, some Americans might have supposed that he was hardly loyal to his own people or faithful to the interests of his own land. Were there not impenitents here who needed his preaching, and since we had but one Moody among us, could we afford to spare him to the Old World?
But never was there better illustration of the fact that evangelism abroad will bring back its blessing; that preaching to a strange people will profit our own kith and kin. It was Moody who set Henry Drummond on fire for souls; it was Moody who turned the whole ministry of B. P. Myers Christward; it was Moody who started John Robertson in search of a better way; it was Moody who taught John McNeil how to take men captive with the Word; it was Moody who discovered Campbell Morgan and invited him to America; and lo, his work among another people has returned us tenfold, for across that sea everyone of these has come to preach the Gospel to Moody’s people—the Americans, and e’en now when the great evangelist’s lips are sealed in death, many of these visit America and carry on. Whether Peter knew it or not, the day he preached the Gospel to the Gentiles, he brought new power to the true Israel.Every convert made from the world is an accession to the Church of Jesus Christ, and when we remember that she is to grow, not by generation, but by regeneration instead, how the responsibility of Gospelizing at home and abroad is made to rest upon those who know the Word! “Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the Church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch” (Acts 11:22). Let us also see that the chosen of Christ are to be received by His Church. A man must appreciate this truth before he is fitted for any ministry of the Word or even membership in Christ’s Church. So long as the Jew looks down upon the Gentile and feels that he has no place in God’s plan of salvation, that Jew is himself unfitted for a place in the Church, for the Church is to be made up of God’s chosen ones without “respect of person”. That is why we dare to decry the class spirit; that is why we plead the cause of the poor who would sometimes be kept out by the rich; of the ignorant who might be rejected by the learned; of the humble whose right might be questioned by the honored.It would seem that God meant to set Peter right on this subject, for the Scriptures say, “The voice answered me again from Heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common” (Acts 11:9). Charles Spurgeon once said to his students, “If we are to prevail with men, we must love them without respect of station. I know gentlemen, whom I esteem in a way, who seem to think that the working classes are a shockingly bad lot, to be kept in check and governed with vigor.
With such views, they will never convert working men. To win men, you must feel, ‘I am one of them. If they are lost sinners, I am one of them. If they need a Saviour, I am one of them.’ To the very chief of sinners you should preach with this text before you, ‘And such were some of you’.”In the Church of Christ, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the humble and the honored are to meet together, realizing that “the Lord is the maker of them all”. The Jew must realize that when the Gentile is born of the Spirit, he becomes his brother; and just because Christ has cleansed him, he is to receive him with gladness, remembering that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace he on them” (Galatians 6:15-16). The terms—“Jew” and “Gentile”— pass from the Church. “And the disciples were called first in Antioch” (Acts 11:26). But after all, this text deals with another important element in the growth of the Church, namely, BY Peter had to be enlarged himself in intellect, in soul, in sympathies, to keep him from standing in God’s way, and from opposing God’s work. And, today, the Church can only make progress in proportion as her individual members are enlarged in mind and heart and sympathies. Yet this is a very natural development, an evolution to be expected.To receive Christ ought to mean an intellectual quickening. It always does mean that. A young man converted found that the incoming of Christ brought with it a holy ambition. Although twenty-three years of age, he was without education, and, as he himself expressed it, had never cared whether his mind was developed or not.
But when Christ came into his heart, a craving for knowledge came with Him, and he humbled himself and went into the public schools of the city and sat down with the little children to begin his studies, and in two short years, he worked his way through seven grades, and then through an academy, determined to make the most of his mind. If you asked him, “Why this change?” he would answer, “Because I am a Christian.”I was much interested in reading Dr.
Hillis’ volume, “A Man’s Value to Society”, to find him quoting from Clark’s “Northampton Antiquities” the statement that that little place had in its short history sent out 114 lawyers, 112 ministers, 95 physicians, 100 educators, seven college presidents, 30 professors, 24 editors, six historians, 14 authors, 38 officers of state, 28 officers of the United States, including members of the Senate and one President. And Hillis rather assigns this result to the fact that the fathers of Northampton were renowned men and their children were like them; but a little investigation will show that the thing that made them the most renowned was their religious fervor, their fidelity to Jesus Christ. We do believe that history has put past dispute the fact that for mental acumen and accomplishments, Christ, dwelling in the heart and life, more often accounts than all other circumstances combined. Peter was an ignorant fisherman up to the day when he received Him. From that hour he was an Apostle of a noble faith; an orator who dwelt an arrow’s flight above the best bred of heathen or Jewish schools; an educator whose influence is more felt today than that of any ten thousand scholastics who know not the Lord.Christ indwelling means growth of soul. There is a spiritual side to one’s nature; there is a soul as distinct from the body and from the intellect as the generation of the Spirit is distinct from that of the flesh.
A man may cultivate that side of his nature, and, sad to say, a man may neglect it also. If Christ is permitted to dwell there, He will see to it that it flowers and fruits, and if Christ is denied His right there, we will witness that it withers and dies.
O. P. Eaches tells how when Charles Darwin was young, his spiritual nature was full of promise, but he forsook the place of worship; he ceased from the study of the Bible; he even turned away from the reading of poetry and listened no longer to music, and in the course of time, Darwin himself tells the results by saying, “Up to the age of thirty, poetry gave me great pleasure, pictures considerable, and music was my delight. Now even Shakespeare nauseates me, and I seem to have become a machine for grinding out laws from large collection of facts.” Even on this he went astray, for evolution is now in collapse. However much we may admire the genius of Darwin, we must admit the seriousness of his having neglected his soul, until every fountain of his affectional nature was dried up and dead, and skepticism came as a shroud to wrap itself about the corpse.Oftentimes we have gone to men to plead with them to undertake some service for the Church, and to Christ, and they have answered with gentleness and respect, “For your sake I would like to do this.” Oh! how that kindly speech stings one. He has missed the whole point of our plea.
We were not arguing for our sakes; we were not even pleading the cause for Christ’s sake alone; it was his own sake that moved us to this endeavor. We wanted this sacrifice made; we wanted him to give this time, this thought, this money, to Christ’s cause, that he might grow, and himself become strong.Many is the time I have carried my babies to some convenient corner of the room, and putting them there where they could stand, have stepped off a pace and said, “Come,” stretching my hands in invitation and assurance, and I have seen them stumble, and even fall, and rise with smiling face to attempt it again, thinking in their infant minds, “It will please papa,” and little dreaming that I was doing it for their good, that they might know how to stand, that they might learn to walk, that they might grow strong.
And sometimes I wonder whether, when our teachers in later life undertake for our souls the same evolution, we understand them and always assign to them the right motive. Beloved, I tell you the truth and lie not, when I say that I never have asked any one of you to sing a song for Christ’s sake; devote an hour to Christ’s service; make money sacrifice for Christ’s cause, but I have desired it above all things else for your sake, that those who are committed into my hands, as unto the overseer of the flock, the shepherd of the people, might grow in spirit and fill up the measure of the stature of perfect men and women in Christ Jesus.We have seen a man, crippled in both lower limbs, drag himself down the aisle of God’s house every Lord’s day, and the worshippers looked upon him as an object of abject pity. But I see more pathetic appearances in the same house and aisle. There is that fine looking man, six feet two, tipping scales at two hundred pounds, straight in body and handsome of face. But, alas for his soul! I’ve seen that.
It is bowed down; it is shriveled; it is diseased; it is dying. I tell you, better be crippled in body than crumpled in spirit!And last of all, expansion by an extension of our sympathies.
Peter’s intellect had been quickened; Peter’s soul had been making good growth since he received the Lord; but now Peter’s sympathies must be extended so that the circle shall receive every Gentile. No matter if the Jew had regarded the Gentile as “a dog”; no matter if this favored son had looked down upon him as an outcast, Christ will compel him to come to the point where the very condition of the Gentile in sin, in darkness, without the knowledge of the God, without the Gospel of His Son, will touch his truer sympathies, and start them flowing in a flood. And, do you know, a man never finds his better self until, by the indwelling Christ, he has a sympathetic heart?“Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul:“And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the Church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.“And in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch.“And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.“Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judaea:“Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul” (Acts 11:25-30).A few years ago, Shishkoff, writing from Russia, reported the famine in that land, and pictured the scenes of starvation upon which he had looked until his own cheeks were scalded with tears, and then he concluded his article with the following appeal: “Christians of England: We are far off; you cannot see our misery or hear our famished children begging for bread. But will that deter you from doing what you can to help us?
Have you not a penny that you can spare? Your 40,000,000 pennies would make nearly 170,000 £—sufficient to save 17,000 human lives.” You know what England’s answer to this appeal was.
It showed that there were men of sympathy there, and in the very endeavor they discovered their better selves.One night in Chicago, at our Social Union, one was speaking to us, and he related George Eliot’s story of Silas Marner, the weaver, who had made it his custom to draw up the boards of his floor at night, and in a miserly way lay his money there, hoarding it, he knew not why, or for what! One night he came home to find it all robbed and gone. Sickened and blinded, he ran to the forest and back to the village searching for his gold, but in vain! When he went out he left open the door, and a little fair-haired waif wandered in, and fell asleep before the open fire. When Silas returned, for one moment his heart started in hope, for he saw the soft yellow curls and thought it was his gold, and staggering forward he thrust his hands into the bright shining stuff, only to discover that he had not a dollar, but rather a daughter, who became the stay and staff and comfort of his declining years. And he then said, “Brethren and sisters of Chicago, you are putting your time, your heart’s blood, your shining gold into the service of God.
Will it ever come back to you? Not as gold, not as time, not as effort.
It shall come back to you in the men and women of the future; in the beautiful sons and daughters of the Lord God.” Oh, yes, and it will come back to us in the form of our own lives and souls. For the day that Silas Marner parted with his dollars and received this daughter, was the day when he began to live. Her questions quickened his intellect; her affection enlarged his hard heart, and her demands opened the concealed fountains of his sympathies; and in all the effort he put forth for her sake, he saved not only a little waif from the streets to become the sweet, beautiful woman she was, but he saved his own soul as well out of the grip of miserliness; out of the death of an intellectual dearth, and out of the grave of shriveled sympathies.